


little umbrellas

by alcibiades



Series: a little light in your black sea [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (mostly), Airplanes, Beach Volleyball, Beaches, Fluff and Humor, Hotel Sex, Hotels, I don't know I could tag this a million things but do I really need to, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Rough Sex, Roughhousing, Sunburn, Travel, Vacation, the rise and fall of James "Bikini" Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 05:58:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3558719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alcibiades/pseuds/alcibiades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the one where Steve and Bucky go on vacation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	little umbrellas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yasaman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yasaman/gifts).



"When did you learn to fly a _plane_?" Steve asked, adjusting his headset once they were at cruising altitude.

"I don't know," Bucky said wryly, looking over at him strapped into the co-pilot's seat. "Sometime in the past seventy-odd years. Why, are you having doubts?"

"No," Steve said a little too quickly.

"I'm fairly certain the only time you flew a plane, it ended in you crashing it into the ocean," Bucky said. "So don't go casting aspersions on my piloting abilities."

"I'm not!" Steve said. "Besides, that was on purpose. I crashed it on purpose."

"Uh huh," Bucky said. "Oh, I know, I know." He reclined the seat and put one foot up on the dashboard. "Pass me the crackers."

+++

Tony had lent Bucky the plane. It was a small, sleek jet, capable of seating six and being piloted by one. It had an undeniably cushy feel to it - everything was made of chrome and dark, shiny wood - and it handled like a dream. "And if you crash it," Tony had said cheerfully, "I'll just have Pepper take it out of your salary!"

After talking to Pepper about taking a vacation, the idea had stuck in his mind. Neither he nor Steve had ever really _been_ on a real vacation, and while it certainly wasn't as if his daily life was strenuous enough for him to feel like he needed time off to relax, all the accumulated stresses of the many years past were a different matter. Not to mention the idea of falling asleep on a warm beach with nothing but the wind and the waves in your ears sounded like a dream come true.

It wasn't hard to convince Steve. He put up some token protests about needing to be around in case something went wrong, but once Bucky said, "You realize we'll have a plane, right? We can get back whenever we need to," and showed him pictures of the place he was thinking of staying, Steve shut up pretty fast.

He would have felt guilty about being able to take a vacation when Pepper, who definitely deserved one more than he did, said she couldn't take one - except then Tony had knocked on the doorframe of Bucky's office looking shady as hell and said, "So I'm thinking about taking Pepper to Bali."

It took some doing, but Bucky managed to clear Pepper's schedule for a solid week. She called down to him about thirty seconds after he'd finished doing it and said loudly in his ear, "I wasn't aware I gave you access to my personal calendar--" (she hadn't; JARVIS had, temporarily) and then, louder, "What are you _doing_?"

"Couldn't tell you," Bucky said. "You should ask Tony."

She had come back from Bali with three times the amount of freckles she'd left with and a sunburn on her nose. "I hate surprises," she said to Bucky, "just so you know." But she'd hugged him, smelling like coconuts, said thank you in his ear, and Bucky knew that the momentary heart attack of looking at her calendar and seeing it completely empty had been forgiven.

+++

So anyway, here they were. Steve was starting to fall asleep - he had a knack for falling asleep on moving vehicles, the opposite of Bucky, for whom planes were one thing but cars of any kind were entirely another, and both just about impossible to sleep in under most circumstances. It was fine; he was flying the plane, anyway. He could sleep later, in the hotel, or on the beach.

He ate crackers and kept an eye on the instruments. Steve woke up with a patch of drool on the front of his shirt and made a noise of disgust that Bucky couldn't help laughing about. "Where are we?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"About an hour out still," Bucky said. "Nice sleep?"

"Got a crick in my neck," Steve said, stretching and then leaning over to look at the instruments, frowning slightly.

"Oh, come on," Bucky said. "Don't pretend to know what any of that says. Here, I'll show you. It's not hard to learn, I could teach you."

He took his foot off the dashboard and leaned forward, starting to explain the avionics to Steve. Like most of the rest of the world, these controls had gotten gradually easier and easier to use as time had gone by. Not to say that anyone could just get in and fly a plane, it still took some learning, but it was a hell of a lot more self-explanatory and straightforward than some of the planes Bucky had a vague memory of having flown in the past. Everything was digital now, all the numbers and pictures perfect and clear.

Steve listened quietly and attentively, and asked questions every now and again - Steve was a pretty good student when it was something he found interesting or useful, and almost strangely respectful of Bucky's instruction. Bucky supposed he'd had to get good at being respectful, if he'd woken up in 2012 with not a clue how to operate in the world around him. He must have been depending on people to teach him.

By the time he was done explaining it all to Steve, they were about ten miles from the airport and Bucky had to get in contact with ground control. This, truthfully, was where he got a little fuzzy on things - he hadn't exactly been politely requesting permission to land any of the other times he could remember being in the pilot's seat. Not being an idiot (mostly, anyway), he'd brushed up on it before leaving.

"How many times have you done this?" Steve asked, the shit.

"Well, most of the time I was more like parachuting out of the plane and letting it explode in a ball of fire," Bucky said casually, putting the gear down and extending the flaps once he had landing clearance. "You know, I thought we could add a little excitement to our vacation. I know how you love jumping out of planes and all."

"Yeah, sounds great," Steve said, grinning and shaking his head, and Bucky cheerfully gave him the finger as he executed a beautiful, smooth landing that was, he thought, truly worthy of a professional pilot.

He taxied off the runway and parked the jet, and he and Steve walked out carrying their bags -- and Steve's shield, which he had, hilariously, insisted on bringing -- into the sunlight.

+++

They took a car over to the resort, got checked in, and then walked down the long path to the villa where they were staying, separate from the main hotel. Steve stared out at the white sand of the beach as they walked -- he'd seen a beach before, they both had, but not one like this. The water looked turquoise, and it _sparkled_ , and the sand was so clean-looking and soft. It was still early, and there was plenty of sunshine left in the day.

"Wow," Steve said, looking around the villa, going through all the rooms and then setting his bag down on the bed. He turned in a slow circle, the light from the windows illuminating him and turning him white and yellow around the edges. "This is -- really beautiful, Buck."

"It is, isn't it," Bucky said. "You like it?"

"Of course I like it," Steve said. He paused, cleared his throat. "I probably don't want to know how much this is costing, do I."

"No," Bucky agreed. "You probably don't." In fact, Bucky didn't really want to think of it in terms of specific figures either. Working for Pepper was one thing - throwing around sums of money that large just felt slightly unreal. It was different when it involved him and Steve; it gave them both this sense of unease, magnifying that feeling that they were somewhere -- some _when_ they shouldn't be, that feeling that still lingered at the back of his mind.

"Well," Steve said, running his fingers along the windowframe, looking out at the beach. "What time's it here?"

"Noon? I think?" Bucky answered. "One, maybe?"

"You want to go down to the beach?"

"Yeah," Bucky said. "I'm just -- I want to rinse off in the shower first. Stale air, you know." He glanced at Steve, who was looking at him skeptically. "Don't say it -- yeah, I know I'm just going to get sweaty and probably salty all over again, I know."

"Stale air," Steve said.

"Stale air." Bucky picked up his duffel bag and went into the bathroom, turning and making a face at Steve as he closed the door. The dry, over-conditioned air of the plane had made him feel itchy all over. Truth be told it might be that it reminded him of one too many underground bases. He turned the shower on lukewarm and got in and out quickly, just rinsing off like he'd told Steve.

It had been weird to pack so light, too. Or - he was used to packing _light,_ but not for leisure. He opened his duffel with one hand, toweling his hair off with the other, and found --

None of his clothes were in there. Well, a couple of fresh pairs of underwear, but his swim trunks and just about everything else were completely missing. Had he grabbed the wrong bag somehow? He rooted around inside, checked all the pockets, and finally dumped the bag's meager contents out onto the bathroom floor.

A small black string bikini landed on the top of the pile. Hanging his towel up, he picked it up delicately between two fingers and looked at it. It was a _very_ small bikini. Not particularly modest. Was Steve trying to tell him something here? Because this went beyond the realm of Steve attempting subtlety and into just -- frankly _disastrous._

Well. It wasn't like he had much of a choice. He put the rest of his stuff back into the duffel and considered the bikini top, but -- no. He didn't think it'd -- fit around his chest, even. No. The bottom, he gave a skeptical look; he could just wear his underwear, except he knew that swimming in underwear was an uncomfortable and clammy experience.

He looked at himself in the full-length mirror, shrugged, and stepped into the bikini bottoms. It was lucky that the strings were adjustable because it was pretty clear that they were meant for someone with a lot less body than Bucky, and -- a lot less -- penis, too.

He didn't think it was all going to _fit_ in there. And it wasn't like he didn't -- have some experience, he wore tight jeans, there wasn't a lot of room in there either. But there was _no_ room in the bikini bottoms. He adjusted himself, looked in the mirror, and blew out a breath. He adjusted himself again. Jesus christ. There was always hope that there wouldn't be anyone else on the beach, because it was, frankly, kind of pornographic.

A solid two and a half minutes later he thought he'd managed to precariously situate his junk in such a way that neither his dick, his balls, or his pubic hair was in immediate danger of leaking out of one side or another of the bikini bottoms. It still didn't look good, unless by "good," you meant that everyone who saw Bucky in this bikini was more or less going to know him in the Biblical sense.

"Bucky?" called Steve's voice from outside the bathroom door. "Uh, can I talk to you?"

"Yeah, what's up?" said Bucky.

"I can't -- I think my swimsuit is missing," Steve said, sounding strained. Bucky opened the bathroom door, and --

\-- wheezed. "Natasha," Bucky said. "Natasha."

Steve was in his underwear, holding up a pair of swim trunks that were nothing short of _obnoxious_ , printed with a bold, bright American flag print. His eyes bulged out of his head a little when he saw Bucky, and about ten seconds later he turned bright red all the way down to his chest so alarmingly fast that Bucky was afraid his nose might start bleeding. "What?" he asked weakly, and Bucky saw that in his other hand was a matching tank top, baseball cap, and sunglasses.

"It was Natasha," Bucky said when he could breathe again. "It had to be."

"You're -- um," Steve replied eloquently.

"I know," Bucky said, "I know. It doesn't really all fit in there. But I also don't have much of a choice, and neither do you. At least yours is like -- maintaining at least some kind of illusion of modesty, you know. Come on, put it on, let's go."

Steve stood there looking sour. "Seriously, Steve, I'll trade you my bikini if you really want," Bucky said, and Steve's eyes dropped down to Bucky's crotch again, and then he shook himself, shucked off his underwear, and shoved his half-hard dick into the American flag board shorts. After a moment he put the sunglasses on too, and Bucky couldn't hold back a cackle.

"It's fine," he said to Steve. "You look great, people will just think you take your job really seriously." He didn't want to ponder what people would think of him, that was a train of thought for another time when there wasn't a beautiful goddamn beach waiting for both of them.

He grabbed the baseball cap from Steve and plunked it on his own head, picked up their room key and a tube of sunscreen, and held the door open for Steve, who had grabbed a couple of towels and his sketchbook. They walked down to the beach, where, thankfully, there weren't actually any other people. Bucky spread out his towel in the sand and sat down on it, gazing out at the horizon.

"I can't believe Natasha would steal our swimsuits," Steve said. After a moment he added, "Actually, I can completely believe Natasha would steal our swimsuits."

"It's fine," Bucky said. "I'll get Sam and Tony to help me fill her entire apartment with packing peanuts and shaving cream when we get back. If that's how she wants to play this, she's gonna have to learn to play in the big leagues." He plunked the tube of sunscreen into Steve's hand. "You want to do me?"

Steve chuckled, and Bucky rolled his eyes at him before turning his back. Steve's hands were cool on his skin, his touch firm. It was just this side of a backrub, really, and Bucky let his head tip forward and his eyes go closed. "Hey," Steve said after a couple of minutes. "I'm done with your back, turn toward me."

Bucky turned around so Steve could get his front, too, shivering a little when Steve's fingers ran over the scarring around his left arm. He wasn't even sure if scars _could_ sunburn, but if Steve wanted to touch him there -- "Give it to me now," Bucky said, holding his hand out for the sunscreen. "I remember how you used to sunburn."

"Don't remind me," Steve said, and Bucky squeezed a generous amount out onto his palms. "I haven't really tested it since the serum, you know. Not a lot of chances to sunbathe."

"You don't say," Bucky replied, careful to get all of Steve's visible skin, and even sticking his fingers down into the waistband of Steve's shorts a little, making him yelp. Even behind the ears, the tops of his feet, and, especially, the bridge of Steve's nose.

He gave Steve a slap on the shoulder when he was done with him and then lay down on his towel, closing his eyes and soaking up the sun. "Thanks," said Steve, and then his shadow shifted off of Bucky as he lay down too. Neither of them said anything for a while, maybe an hour; they could probably have talked if they'd wanted to, but Bucky didn't really feel like he _needed_ to say anything. It was enough just to lay there silent in Steve's presence.

He opened his eyes when he started to feel sticky, and saw that Steve had fallen asleep, his breathing slow and even and his face slack. He wished he'd brought his phone, or that he could draw, because it made a hell of a picture. Instead, he got up and walked down to the water to rinse the stickiness off. When he came back, Steve shifted, opening his eyes, and sat up.

"I'm kind of thirsty," he said, his voice creaky.

"There's a bar," Bucky said, pointing back toward the hotel, where there was some kind of a tiki lounge about halfway between the main building and where they were now. "It's included with the room. I'm sure they've got water."

Steve stretched and glanced in that direction, then squinted at Bucky. "What, you want me to go?" Bucky asked. "You afraid someone's gonna recognize you? Because I hate to break it to you, but you're not the one wearing a bikini, and I've got this --" he wiggled his metal fingers, which sent little glints of light dancing across the sand, "which is pretty recognizable too."

"All right, all right," Steve said, standing up. "You get next, then. What do you want, just water?"

"Just water for now, yeah," Bucky said, settling back down on his towel and grinning up at Steve. "Thanks, pal."

"'Thanks, pal,'" Steve mocked, shaking his head, hitching up his patriotic swim trunks and heading down the beach.

He came back a couple of minutes later with two bottles of water and tossed one to Bucky before sitting back down again. "Can I draw you?" he asked Bucky.

"What, like you usually ask me permission?" Bucky responded. "Yeah, of course you can, you don't need to ask me. Is it okay if I lie down?"

"Sure," Steve said, pushing his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. He got his sketchbook and flipped to a blank page, then started scribbling as soon as Bucky had settled into a comfortable position. Maybe a little _too_ comfortable, because next thing he knew he was waking up and the sun was a lot lower than it had been when he'd fallen asleep.

"Hey," Steve said from next to him. He was still sketching. "You kind of passed out."

"Yeah," Bucky agreed, rubbing his eyes. He sat up and scooted over next to Steve to look at Steve's drawing. "That's nice," he said. "You should make that one into a painting when we get back."

"I was thinking I might," Steve said, sticking his pencil in the book to mark his page and then turning toward Bucky, putting both of his hands on Bucky's face and kissing him. He tasted like salt and smelled like coconuts, just about good enough to eat. Bucky smiled into the kiss.

"You want to go back to the room?" he asked against Steve's mouth, thinking they oughta before the situation in Bucky's swimsuit made itself obviously and unavoidably known. Steve nodded, and Bucky got up, offering him a hand and then shaking the sand off his towel, rolling it up, and tucking it under his arm.

He turned to Bucky with this knowing smirk on his face as soon as they were back in their room, and started to reach for Bucky's swimsuit so quickly -- Bucky slapped his hands away and said, "Oh no you don't," just to see Steve's face change. His eyebrows shot up and then drew together, that expression he'd always got when he was being challenged, and then settled into determination.

He grabbed for Bucky again, and Bucky shoved his towel at him to occupy his hands elsewhere. Just as quickly, Steve threw the towel aside, and his sketchbook, which landed haphazardly on the floor with a clunk. He got Bucky around the wrists, his fingers closing tight like a vise, and leaned in for a kiss.

Bucky bit his lip -- not too hard, but hard enough that Steve got that surprised look again, and threw Bucky back on the bed, straddling him and yanking the hat off Bucky's head, confident in his superiority until the exact moment when Bucky got his legs around Steve's waist and flipped them both over so that he was on top of Steve instead. And when he got his own hands around Steve's wrists -- Steve was strong enough to break Bucky's right-handed hold, but there might not be a human being alive who was strong enough to break the grip of Bucky's left hand. He squeezed, warningly, as Steve flexed up against him, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, pink and panting.

"Oh, come on," Bucky said. His knees were tight against Steve's hips, and he used them to urge Steve to turn over, onto his stomach, except that instead of doing that Steve got a leg in between Bucky's thighs and flipped _Bucky_ , landing heavily on top of him even though Bucky was still, awkwardly, holding onto his left wrist.

He had to let go for a split second, the joints of his metal arm creaking in protest, and in that split second Steve slapped Bucky's hands against the headboard and covered them with his own, holding them there as he rolled his hips down against Bucky's ass. With the full weight of Steve on him Bucky could hardly even draw a full breath, and Bucky couldn't help the groan that escaped his mouth, muffled against the pillow.

Bucky gave Steve an elbow to the side, but couldn't get much force behind it, and all that really resulted was that Steve pinned his hands down even harder, so hard that his right arm ached in protest. Steve lay heavily on top of him, lazily humping his ass, his hot breath washing over Bucky's ear, until Bucky stopped struggling, and then his grip relaxed and he turned Bucky over.

"You always have to win, don't you," Bucky said, keeping his hands where Steve had left them against the headboard as Steve pulled the bikini bottoms off him.

Steve grinned. "'Course I do," he said.

"Lucky you I let you," Bucky said, spreading his legs so Steve could settle in between them when he'd divested himself of his own swimsuit.

"Lucky me," Steve agreed, bending down to cover Bucky's wrists with his hands again -- lighter, this time, not so much pinning them as just holding them -- and kissing him, tasting like sunshine and sand. Bucky groaned, wrapping his legs around Steve and pushing up against him.

Steve kissed Bucky until Bucky felt dizzy, and then fumbled in the bedside table, swearing when he realized that there wasn't any lube in there like there would have been at home, and then getting up and rifling through his duffel bag until he found what he was looking for. "Gonna get these nice white sheets all dirty," Bucky said to him as he drizzled it over his fingers, and then promptly lost the ability to speak coherently when Steve put two fingers in him at once and went straight for his prostate.

"I'm gonna get more than that dirty," Steve said, and Bucky laughed breathlessly at him until Steve smacked him lightly across the face and put the fingers of his free hand in Bucky's mouth to shut him up.

Judging by the state of Steve's erection, the lack of preparation he gave Bucky was more out of necessity than planning, but Bucky didn't care; he was used to taking whatever Steve cared to give him by now, and he was pretty sure -- _pretty_ god damn sure -- that Steve was aware that Bucky got off on it when it hurt a little, even if it wasn't for any reasons he particularly wanted to examine in depth.

He grabbed Bucky by the chin when he pushed inside, and then his hand slid down heavily onto Bucky's throat, holding Bucky down and squeezing slightly whenever Bucky groaned. He had been right about Steve not lasting a lot longer, too; Steve held out for about a minute and a half, and then he seized up, his hand around Bucky's throat actually cutting off Bucky's air for a moment, and came.

He stayed stock still for a few seconds, panting, his head hanging forward, and then he pulled out abruptly and slid down Bucky's body very quickly. Bucky shouted half in surprise when Steve sucked his dick into his mouth, and he wasn't sure if it was surprise or what, but he came about thirty seconds after that too.

"That was nice," Bucky said sleepily, afterwards; Steve had crawled back up beside him and pulled some of the sheets around himself, looking sweaty and satisfied. Steve opened an eye and laughed, then reached for the stars-and-stripes baseball cap and put it over his face.

Bucky got up after a moment, wobbly-legged, and went to get his phone. He took a picture of Steve -- you couldn't see Steve's dick or anything, he had more class than that, but he thought from the context of the photo it was pretty obvious what had just occurred -- and Snapchatted it to Natasha with the caption "your plan backfired."

+++

They both fell asleep as soon as Bucky came back to bed, and he woke up to the sun going down, his stomach growling, and the sound of Steve taking a shower.

He stood with his arms folded, looking out the window, for about a minute, and then he went into the bathroom, startling Steve slightly. "Hey," he said, getting in the shower with Steve and pressing up against Steve's back, resting his face against Steve's shoulder. "I'm starving."

"Yeah, me too," Steve agreed, his hand covering one of Bucky's. "I was kind of surprised you didn't wake up when I got out of bed. You usually do."

"Mmm," Bucky agreed. "I'm becoming complacent, it's all a part of Hydra's master plan." He rubbed his nose against Steve's shoulderblade when Steve went slightly stiff. "Sorry," he said. "I know you hate that."

"It's okay," Steve said. "You were just joking."

"Well, one of us has to be the funny one." Bucky glanced around. "This shower is _huge_."

"It is, isn't it?" Steve asked. "I was wondering about that -- how many people do you think were meant to _fit_ in here?"

"I'd guess four," Bucky said, "at minimum. We should let Tony know about this. I think he'd be offended to know he's no longer the leading connoisseur of showers that are way too big to seem normal." He shifted, reaching for the soap. "I mean, two people trying to have sex in a shower is complicated enough."

"Yeah," Steve agreed. "Where would all the arms and legs go?"

"Like I said, we'd have to ask Tony," Bucky said, and he figured he deserved it when Steve reached back and flicked him in the nose.

They got dressed and walked outside just in time to catch the fantastic tail end of the sunset. It was good enough to make Steve put his hands in his pockets and drag his feet in the sand -- a surefire sign that Steve had found something nice to look at and was trying to unobtrusively spend as much time looking at it as he possibly could. It was devastatingly unsubtle once you knew it for what it was, and Bucky found it hilariously endearing that Steve still did it.

There were several other people in the beachside restaurant when he and Steve went in, but by then it was also dark enough that he figured it was possible nobody would recognize them, especially dressed unobtrusively like they were. Bucky had worn a long-sleeved linen button-up on the plane, and he was grateful to have it now to cover most of his arm. It wouldn't have _mattered_ , really, somebody was bound to recognize them while they were here, but it was nice to have one night without being Captain America and the Winter Soldier, and maybe not even Steve Rogers and James Barnes -- just two anonymous guys eating dinner and listening to the sounds of the waves lapping against the sand.

+++

"Natasha wants me to send her a picture of you in the bikini," Steve said, squinting at his phone, shading the screen with his hand.

Bucky sat up on his elbows, unsurprised. "Nice of her to text _you_ ," he said. She hadn't responded to his Snap yet. She was probably busy doing something nefarious with it. "Okay, go ahead."

Steve turned toward Bucky, fiddling with his phone, and Bucky patiently struck a pose and held it until Steve said, "Got it," and settled back down again. He grinned. "She says you look ridiculous."

"What a sweet girl," Bucky said. "I'm glad you've made such nice friends, Steve." He took Steve's phone, looked at the picture of himself, snorted, and then cackled. "Well, she's not wrong. Hey, do you want something to drink? I keep seeing people with drinks with little umbrellas, and I want one of those."

Steve took his phone back, considered, and shrugged. "Sure, I guess," he said. "It comes with the room, right?"

"Yeah," Bucky said, standing up and brushing sand off his legs. "Might as well make use of it."

He'd started toward the bar when he heard Steve call after him, "If it makes you feel better, it looks a lot better going than it does coming."

He couldn't figure out what Steve meant for a second, and then -- of course, the swimsuit. He looked behind himself for a second. "Gee, thanks," he yelled. "You sure know how to flatter a guy."

The sound of Steve's laughter followed him down the beach, and as a very weak, petty sort of revenge he asked the bartender for the brightest pink, fruitiest drink he could make. And then he ordered one for himself, too, because it actually looked pretty good.

It _tasted_ pretty good, too. His revenge had completely backfired. Steve slurped the whole thing down in about five minutes flat and tucked the umbrella behind his ear like a trophy, smiling widely at Bucky from beneath the brim of the baseball cap, which he had claimed for himself today. "Oh, what, you want another one?" Bucky asked. He threw his own tiny umbrella at Steve, and then a grape, for good measure, which Steve completely foiled by catching in his mouth. Bucky threw another grape at him and felt satisfied when it hit Steve in the eye.

He lost track of how many times he walked up and down the beach, and in fact how many drinks they each had, because he kept giving the bartender back the glasses, but maybe two hours later, Steve said, "You know, I -- do you feel that?"

Bucky shifted. "Yeah," he said. "Yep."

"It's amazing," Steve said. When Bucky looked over at him, he had his hands behind his head and he was wearing the slightly-silly tipsy expression Bucky hadn't seen on him in -- _years._ "I think I might _be_ a daiquiri."

"I think it's psychological," Bucky said. "Or just -- sugar, there was a lot of sugar in those drinks."

"No, I drank an entire bottle of whiskey once and didn't get drunk," Steve said stubbornly.

"You're -- that's proving my point," Bucky said. "It's psychological. All the little umbrellas are melting your brain."

"The _sun's_ melting my brain," Steve complained. He propped himself up on one elbow and gave Bucky what Bucky had come to understand from experience as a seductive look. "You want to go inside with me?"

"Yes," Bucky said, "But first, hold on, hold it right there," and he took a picture of Steve that turned out blurry because he was laughing and couldn't hold the camera still, and Natasha just sent back a bunch of question marks when he texted it to her.

Anyway, fifteen minutes later Steve was yelling Bucky's name and it didn't matter if Steve was a daiquiri, or the photo was blurry, or what.

+++

By day three, Bucky was covered in freckles just about everywhere it was possible for a human being to freckle -- he thought he had freckles on his _thighs_ , which just didn't seem reasonable -- but mostly on the bridge of his nose and his shoulders. It fascinated Steve, who had apparently never witnessed Bucky in this stage of suntan, or had just forgotten. Steve had gotten a little pink around his shoulders and the tops of his feet, but otherwise was mostly still pale.

"I don't understand how we're both Irish but you get tan and I just burn," Steve said.

"Mmm, I don't know," Bucky said, shifting closer to Steve, resting his face in the hollow of Steve's neck. "You know, my Ma always said we were Black Irish."

"Black Irish isn't even real," Steve said. "I looked it up."

Bucky cracked an eye open and glared up at Steve. "You trying to irritate me into rubbing more lotion on you, or what?" he said. "Because just asking me might work a little bit better, even if I admire your attempts at subtlety."

Steve tugged on his hair, and then his fingers landed on Bucky's shoulders again, tracing a nonsense pattern that must have been a map of all the freckles there. "Will you?" he asked eventually. "Put more lotion on my back?"

Bucky grunted and sat up, reaching for the lotion. "'Course I will," he said, scooting behind Steve and pressing a finger against the pinkest spot, right at the point of Steve's shoulder. The fingermark faded quickly, so it wasn't anything serious, and knowing how fast Steve's metabolism turned over, it'd be gone in a couple of hours anyway.

Still, he slathered a generous amount of lotion on Steve and then pushed Steve down so he could go back to laying with his face pressed against Steve's neck and listen to the birds calling and the sound of some girls down the beach playing volleyball.

Next thing he knew, he was waking up abruptly because something was _burning_ him -- he jerked away from Steve, sitting up, and swore to discover it was his _arm_ burning him where it was touching his side. "Motherfucker!" he said, holding it away from his body, darting down to the water, and getting in to cool it off.

Usually he wasn't in the sun long enough for it to absorb that much heat. He should have been smart enough to cover it up with a towel, but he hadn't been intending to fall asleep for -- he looked at the position of the sun in the sky and said, "Jesus christ!" -- _four hours._

Up on the beach, Steve was sitting up, rubbing his eyes, looking flustered and -- holy shit, bright red. _Bright_ red. He got up gingerly and came walking down toward the water. "Don't even tell me how bad it is," he said to Bucky, when he saw the look on Bucky's face. At least it was mostly restricted to his face, arms, and legs -- the rest of him had more or less been covered by Bucky's body.

"What happened?" Steve asked, indicating where Bucky was still holding his arm away from his body.

"It fucking burned me," Bucky said. "I should have put a towel over it, but I wasn't expecting to fall asleep for four damn hours."

"Four hours?" Steve repeated, rubbing his eyes and then wincing at the sensation of skin touching sunburned skin.

"We need to put some lotion on that," Bucky said. "Like, right away."

"Yeah," Steve agreed, and Bucky got out of the water and went to grab his towel and then picked up Steve's towel and sketchbook too so he wouldn't have to carry it.

Steve blew out a breath and laughed when he saw himself, but subsided into irritation again once Bucky had slathered the entirety of his sunburns in aloe vera lotion. He was lying in bed without any covers on, because he couldn't stand even the feeling of the sheets touching the sunburn. "Well, look at the bright side," Bucky said, poking at the burn on his own ribs where it had started to blister. "At least now you'll be tan when it fades."

Steve gave Bucky a look so sour that Bucky swore he could taste lemons, and Bucky laughed for about thirty seconds and then decided to take pity on Steve -- Bucky had had a bad sunburn before too, he knew what that was like -- and give him a blowjob to distract him from the misery.

+++

By the time they walked over to the beachfront restaurant for dinner, the sunburn had faded considerably - enough so that at least Steve could wear a shirt now, and was in a much better mood. Before, Bucky knew, it would have lasted days, maybe even a week. Before, Steve hadn't just been able to bounce back from these kinds of things.

Whatever nonsense his mind was turning over and over, it was mostly put to rest by how good the food was. Not to say that seafood was Bucky's favorite thing, but when it was fresh and good, it was pretty amazing. And there was something about eating it outside in the warm sea-scented air, watching the big red ball of the sun sink down into the water, that made it somehow even better.

Their waitress, who looked about seventeen, kept giving Steve nervous looks, and eventually, once she'd cleared away their plates, she said, "I'm sorry, I don't mean to bother you, but are you -- Captain America?"

Steve glanced over at Bucky like -- what, like he was asking Bucky, like he wasn't sure what the answer to that question was? Bucky shrugged at him; it was up to Steve if he wanted to be Captain America or not. Bucky probably would never quite understand this dilemma in the way that Steve did, not being a beloved national icon himself, or at least not on the level that Steve had been elevated to. And truthfully, Steve _wasn't_ Captain America, not all the time. He wore Cap sort of like he wore the uniform, and Bucky wasn't ignorant to the fact that it was effort and pressure, putting that face on for the public.

"Yeah, I am," Steve said eventually, and the waitress asked shyly if she could get a photo, holding out her phone to Bucky. Steve gave Bucky an apologetic look, which made Bucky snort and laugh, because he wasn't offended by it. He snapped the photo and handed the phone back to the girl, and she thanked them and left. It was fine; Steve had probably made her week, and it had been remarkably little effort on either of their behalves.

"She probably recognized by you by your patriotic tank top," Bucky said, and Steve looked down at himself and laughed.

"It made me think," Steve said, "or, well, I was thinking earlier, that it must be weird living here and just -- working at a place like this."

"What do you mean?" Bucky asked.

"I mean -- we come here to relax, and go on vacation," Steve said. "But it's her life, you know? Her job. It seems -- unfair, I don't know."

"Well, sure, I guess," Bucky said. "But that's a lot of people's lives, Steve. It's called the service _industry_ for a reason."

"Did you ever think about that, when you were -- you washed dishes at that awful diner for what, eight months?" Steve asked.

"Did I think about it?" Bucky settled his chin in his hand. "Sure. I mean, I didn't have to deal with it face-to-face, though. Sometimes people would send back their plates half-eaten, or the waitresses would be talking to each other -- or me -- about some of the shitty customers they had, and I'd think to myself that someday if I ever got to be in that position I wouldn't act like that, but I didn't ever think -- it seemed like the natural order of things, I guess."

Steve huffed a laugh, and Bucky said, "Don't you start with me on class warfare again, you know I came from just about the same place as you. I didn't say it was right, just that it's always been that way, Steve. And of course it seems strange as hell looking at it from the other side."

"It does," Steve said. He paused, and then added, "I'm -- having a really nice time. I guess that's part of it. I'm really enjoying myself."

"That's fine," Bucky said. "You're meant to be enjoying yourself." He smiled at Steve wryly. "Just because neither of us is breaking our backs or working ourselves into an early grave doesn't mean we're not contributing, you know."

"You sound like a therapist," Steve said with a chuckle, and Bucky made a face at him.

"Pepper told me that, actually," he said. "Which is kind of ironic, because she works more than almost anybody I know."

"Well, Pepper is a smart lady," said Steve, leaving a tip on the table, weighed down by his empty glass, and standing up. "You want to walk on the beach?"

"Tell me something I don't know," Bucky said, and, "Yeah, let's go."

They walked silently along the beach for a while, the cool waves lapping at their bare feet. Bucky watched the moon rise, its reflection bright on the water. "I'm having a good time too," he said to Steve eventually, looking at Steve's profile highlighted by the cold moonlight.

Steve smiled a small, pleased smile, a sort of private smile that Bucky was proud to have put on his face, and reached out to take Bucky's hand. "It doesn't feel real sometimes," he said.

He meant being happy, Bucky knew. He understood because he felt the same way on occasion. Steve's thumb rubbed across his knuckles. "I know," Bucky said. "But this is about as real as it gets."

+++

By morning, Bucky's myriad freckles had evened into a tan, and Steve's sunburn was gone, leaving him with a bit of color too -- albeit only in certain places. "Hey, look at you," Bucky said, rubbing his finger against the bridge of Steve's nose. "Turns out the impossible is possible and Steve Rogers _can_ get a tan."

"Not as nice as yours, though," Steve said, and Bucky flicked his nose.

They fucked in their nest of white sheets, and then they went to get breakfast, and ended up on the beach again after that. Steve was drawing Bucky again, and Bucky was occupying that empty meditative space in his head that he'd cultivated as the Winter Soldier, ostensibly reading a book, but not really reading it.

Down the beach, the same group of girls was playing volleyball, and eventually a couple of them came over, one of them holding the ball under her arm. Bucky and Steve both turned and squinted up at the girls. They were young and very pretty, so pretty that they could have been off-duty models or something. The one with the ball under her arm, brown-skinned and black-haired, said something to them.

"Sorry?" said Steve from behind Bucky, and she repeated herself.

"It's Portuguese," Bucky said. "She's asking if we want to play volleyball with them."

Steve glanced at Bucky. "Do you want to play volleyball with them?" he asked.

"Are you kidding?" Bucky said. "Does anyone _not_ want to play volleyball with them? Do you not want to play volleyball with them? Are you insane?"

He stood up and grinned at the girls, reaching out to shake both of their hands and introducing himself and Steve. "We'd love to," he told them.

There were four of them - Camila, Gabriela, Sophie, and Marieke -- and they _were_ models, it turned out. Two of them were Brazilian, and the other two were Dutch. The Brazilians claimed Bucky for their side and Steve ended up with the Dutch girls, and as soon as Marieke served, Bucky could tell from the look in Steve's eyes that the game was _on_.

He had to hold himself back from sending the volleyball flying halfway across the beach; he pulled his strength on most of his shots, unless he knew it was Steve going for the ball, in which case -- Steve could handle it, he let him have it. This resulted once in Steve getting a volleyball to the chest and getting knocked back into the sand about ten feet, but Bucky didn't really feel bad for him, considering that all four of the girls immediately ran over to make sure he was okay. It gave Bucky the opportunity to tighten his swimsuit, which he was grateful for, and to wonder about the fact that none of them had even batted an eyelash that he was wearing a bikini bottom.

They played for a while until Gabriela and Sophie said they were getting tired, and then they all went to the bar and got drinks. Bucky spoke very little Dutch, and Steve definitely didn't speak any Portuguese, but all of them muddled through; the two Dutch girls spoke pretty good English, and Bucky translated poorly for the Brazilians. It was -- fun, actually, really fun. Bucky hadn't realized how much he'd missed the whole game of flirting. He didn't mean anything by it, and Steve had to know that, but there was a certain challenge in it that was strangely satisfying.

"You're something else," Steve said as they walked back to their rooms to take a shower and get changed for dinner. "The way you can just turn it on like that, I forgot what watching that is like."

Bucky raised an eyebrow at him, and Steve said, "You can just -- you can make people _like_ you so easily. I guess I was always a little jealous of that."

"It's not _easy_ ," Bucky said.

"No, I -- I guess it must not be," Steve said. "It just looks like it from the outside." He smiled at Bucky. "I meant I liked seeing you like that, that's all."

Bucky couldn't figure out what to say to that, and instead he felt himself blushing, which made Steve give a bewildered laugh. He stopped at the doorway to the villa, leaning against the wall beside Bucky as Bucky unlocked the door, and before Bucky could even step inside, he bent down and kissed Bucky.

"You're insatiable," Bucky said when he could get enough breath to talk, crowded up against the door with Steve pressed against him. "And you have the weirdest turn-ons, you know that?"

"I'm not going to apologize," Steve said.

"No, of course not," Bucky replied. "But will you at least let me get inside the room before you jump my bones?"

+++

He woke up the next morning because there was a girl somewhere -- screaming.

He was naked, and so was Steve, and he threw the covers off himself and sat up immediately, panting, looking around. It must have been a dream; he hadn't had a nightmare in a while, and of course nobody was screaming, they were on _vacation_ , for christ's sakes. But then -- there it was again, a high-pitched ululating shriek of terror.

Steve sat up too and looked at Bucky in alarm, and Bucky rolled out of bed, grabbing his underwear and his pants and pulling them both on as fast as he could. "Stay there," he said, rifling in his duffel bag, coming up with his pistol, tucking it into the back of his pants.

"You brought a _gun_?" Steve asked.

Bucky tilted his head and raised his eyebrows, looking pointedly over at Steve's shield and tucking the first of several small knives into his pockets. Outside, the commotion was getting louder, and Bucky went to the window, pulled the curtains back, and looked down the beach.

Steve was getting up anyway, despite the fact that Bucky had told him to stay put. He pulled on his underwear and grabbed the shield, and then went out the front door before Bucky had much of a chance to do anything other than say, "The fuck are you doing?", which, of course, Steve ignored.

He followed Steve, like he always did, and swore when he saw smoke coming from the hotel and several figures dark-clad in tactical gear. He snagged Steve by the arm and pulled him flat against the side of their villa. "Stop and think for a second," he hissed. "There's half a dozen of them, armed, and you're in your goddamn underwear."

"I know," Steve said, "But those are civilians in there, those people are completely innocent!" He glanced around the corner. "They're coming this way anyway."

"How did they even _find_ us," Bucky said, because there was no doubt in his mind that was why the island was being stormed -- of course it was. He took a breath, and said, "All right, on three, I'll take left and you take right. You get shot and I _swear_ , Steven."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Steve said. "Okay. One -- two -- three --" and before Steve had quite finished saying _three_ Bucky exploded out from behind the villa and into the path of about six oncoming men, who stared at him for a moment in bewildered surprise.

"You've got to be _fucking_ kidding me!" Bucky yelled at the one nearest to him, whose mouth was open wide in shock. Poorly prepared to deal with the Winter Soldier, evidently. Bucky smashed him in the face with his fist, and shouted down at him as he crumpled, "I'm on vacation, you assholes!"

He whipped out a knife and stuck it neatly into the sliver of skin between the next guy's helmet and his tactical jacket, disarmed him and slung the gun over his shoulder, its strap digging slightly into his skin. He saw the glint of Steve's shield as it whizzed through the air beside him, bouncing off somebody's face, and then Steve launching forward to grab it and jam it edgewise against the throat of another man.

He turned to Steve and nodded once all six of the men were down, and Steve pointed toward the main building of the hotel and started off at a jog, looking fairly self-possessed for the fact that he was still in his goddamn underwear. Bucky tossed him a pistol, which he gave distasteful look but held onto, and sprinted out in front of him, taking point.

They came up beside one of the big outward-facing windows of the hotel and Bucky peered inside. "I see about fifteen more men in there," he said. "Looks like they're engaging the hotel staff -- probably trying to find out where we are." He licked his lips; engaging was a polite way of putting it, because the front desk people were all on their knees with their hands behind their heads, and Bucky could see that at least one of them was sobbing.

"I'm going to go around to the front," Steve said. "You stay here and see if you can pick a few of them off in the meantime. Give me about a minute and a half."

"Got it," Bucky said, unhooking the strap of the gun he'd taken off one of the hostiles and crabwalking over to one of the windows that had been broken out by a gunshot. God, he hoped none of the hotel staff was dead. It didn't matter, he couldn't think about it right now anyway. He drew a bead on one of the men pointing guns at the hostages and breathed evenly, counting the seconds.

He saw the glint of Steve's shield from the other side and took the shot. The man fell heavily and the others all started to wildly look around. Bucky adjusted his aim, took down another, and another, and another -- it was easy when they were all standing in a cluster like that -- and then he saw Steve bursting in through the door, and had to change position anyway because several of the men had spotted him and were coming for him now.

He slung the gun back over his shoulder and got a knife out instead; these guys were pretty clearly goons, nowhere near as highly trained or skilled as Bucky or Steve. They were a poor match for him at hand-to-hand combat, and would have been even without the added benefit of his left arm. Five-to-one was uneven odds, but in the end the five of them were scattered around him on the ground bleeding and all he was left with was a split lip and a bruised cheekbone where one of them had gotten lucky and whacked him in the face with the butt of a gun.

Steve seemed to have lured the other -- seven? -- outside, leaving the hostages to huddle back behind the big reception desk. Bucky went to see to them, crouching down and touching a finger to his bloody lip for a moment. "Are you all right?" he asked, looking at all of them.

Nobody answered at first; they were all just staring at him, terrified. They seemed okay, except for one guy who had a bloody nose that was probably very broken. Bucky touched his chin and turned his head back and forth. Definitely broken. "Are you all right?" he asked again, quieter, addressing the man specifically this time.

"Yes," the man said, blinking, apparently snapping out of it. It was shock, probably. The guy was wearing a suit, and Bucky looked at his nametag, which said he was the manager on duty. "We're all right. Thank you, sir."

"You just stay here, okay?" Bucky said. "Call an ambulance -- you need to have that nose looked at, and you're probably in shock. Don't move until I say so, or -- uh, Captain America says so, or the paramedics. Did you see anyone else come in?"

"No, sir," said the man in the suit, reaching for the telephone and starting to dial with shaky hands.

Bucky was loathe to leave them alone, but Steve still hadn't come back in. He shoved his hand against his goddamn bloody lip again and edged around the desk. There were no more sounds of fighting. He walked slowly to the front door, keeping clear of the windows, and looked out.

"Steve?" he said. He counted bodies -- seven men dressed in tactical gear, all sprawled out, and then -- Steve, sitting heavily on a stone bench by the big, ostentatious fountain, the shield on the ground next to him.

"Steve?" he repeated, and Steve looked at him. His face was pale, and his hands were red; both of them were pressed against his leg, which was dousing the nice stone bench in a steady stream of blood. "I told you not to get fucking shot," Bucky said, sprinting over and adding his own hands to the mix, sealing his left hand against the wound and pressing it tight. "I fucking told you."

"I didn't get shot," Steve said weakly. "I got stabbed."

Bucky looked up at the sky and tried very hard not to swear at Steve any more than he already had, thanking his lucky stars that he'd told the hotel manager to call an ambulance. "I think it nicked the artery," Steve said.

"Yeah, you think?" Bucky asked, watching Steve's blood drip along his arm. "How are you still sitting up right now? The last thing we need is you falling and cracking your skull on this -- ugly-ass bench."

"I thought it was pretty," Steve said, and then, "Willpower, I don't know."

Bucky risked taking his hands away long enough to maneuver Steve off the bench and into a more stable position; Steve blanched and blood squirted out from between his fingers. His grip was failing, because he was getting closer to passing out, and Bucky put his own hands back over Steve's as soon as he could, exhaling a little when he heard the ambulance sirens getting closer.

The paramedics came flying out of the ambulance and over to them immediately, and Bucky shouted at them, "He needs blood," and then, "Use mine, I can give him a transfusion, we're the same type."

He was prepared to hear Steve protest, but he didn't. Steve had passed out, looking just about as white as the marble bench, and then everything was a blur for a few minutes, until he was sitting in the back of the ambulance with a needle in his arm, the other end of it in Steve's, and Steve's face resting against his shoulder, his eyelids slack. Almost like he was asleep.

+++

Steve woke up looking like he was about to be sick, and then said, "Aw, fuck," when he saw Bucky sitting there.

"Aw, fuck?" Bucky said. "That's not a nice thing to say to the person who just saved your stupid life." He reached over and grabbed the glass of water they'd left for Steve, pressing it into Steve's hand. "Drink that. You're dehydrated."

"I'm sorry," Steve said. "Buck, I'm really sorry, I wasn't careful --"

"Stop," Bucky said. "Drink your water. It's not your fault."

Steve opened his mouth, then closed it again, looked thoughtful for about five seconds, and downed the entire glass of water in one go.

"Instagram," Bucky said, answering the question that Steve had been about to ask. "They found us because the waitress posted that picture you took with her on Instagram and tagged you in it. It was Hydra, they were looking for me, and yes, I do feel bad about making that joke about getting complacent now."

Steve cleared his throat, moved his leg a little, then lifted up the sheets to look at it. "We'll have to make sure that the resort doesn't take any kind of disciplinary action against her," he said. "It's not her fault."

"No, it's not," Bucky agreed. "The hotel manager is still here. He has a broken nose, and he wanted to wait and make sure you were all right. We can talk to him about it."

Steve was messing with the bandages -- probably moving them around so he could get a look at the gash in his leg, the morbid fucker. He had always been like that; Bucky could remember him even at eight years old, staring down as Bucky's ma stitched up his knee after he fell and busted it on a sharp rock down by the river. "Would you stop," Bucky said. "And let this be a goddamn lesson to you to at least put on some pants before you go running into a combat situation."

Steve gave him a rueful smile. "But I'm on vacation," he said, and Bucky couldn't help but laugh.

+++

They stayed in the hospital overnight and most of the next day, until Steve's leg had healed up enough that he could sort of walk on it and wasn't in danger of popping his stitches and pouring all the blood that Bucky had so kindly given him all over the place. Bucky fielded a somewhat-frantic call from a very upset Pepper -- apparently what had happened was already on the news, and given that she hadn't heard from him or Steve, he figured that she had every right to be upset. He also got a text from Natasha that said _I can't believe Rogers let himself get stabbed._

 _i know,_ Bucky sent back. _how unprofessional, right?_ and then he sent her a text after that that was just ten poop emojis in a row.

They couldn't go back to the resort for obvious reasons, and their vacation was almost over anyway. Still, Bucky got a taxi to take them down to the city marina, and helped Steve hobble out onto the pier so that they could watch the sunset one more time before they had to leave.

"I'm sorry we had to spend two days of our vacation in the hospital," Steve said, chagrined, putting his arm around Bucky's waist and kissing Bucky's temple.

"It's all right," Bucky said. He turned and smiled at Steve for a second before looking back out at the water. The sunset was paler today but no less lovely for it; the water had a sort of silvery glint to it, smooth as glass. "I still had a good time."

"Me too," Steve said. "Me too."

They took the taxi over to the airport after that, and Steve insisted on sitting in the cockpit with Bucky again, instead of back in the passenger area where it might have been more comfortable to stretch out. "I'm not letting you fly, though," Bucky said. "You need to log some practice hours before you get to touch these controls."

Steve shot him a look, folding his arms. "Yeah, I'm sure you had a lot of structured practice time," he said, and Bucky found the box of crackers he'd left by his seat and nailed Steve right in the forehead with one.

About an hour later, Steve fell asleep again, leaving Bucky to watch him and again feel envious of his ability to sleep more or less wherever and whenever he pleased. He reached over and smoothed Steve's hair back from his forward; up this high it was very dark, and it was only the illumination of the instruments and the occasional burst of moon through the clouds that let him see Steve at all.

He shook Steve awake when they were coming around on the city. It was beautiful, all the lights visible even from far away, and he knew Steve would like to see it. "'S it?" Steve asked, rubbing his face and then, peering out, "Oh."

"It's pretty, isn't it?" Bucky asked. The whole city had a golden glow, like somebody had dropped a big handful of tiny diamonds and scattered them around everywhere. And just about every one of those lights represented a person -- a car, or somewhere somebody lived or worked. Steve and Bucky were in there too, the home they lived in now and the one they'd lived in before, in Brooklyn. Stark Tower stood out even among all the other tall buildings, casting its blue glow out into the night.

It made him feel a certain sense of nostalgia, and, perversely enough, protectiveness. Not that the city needed it -- New York had proven well enough that it could and would stubbornly recover from just about anything. But having that knowledge didn't make it feel any less pleasant, coming home.

Teterboro was just about deserted this time of night, and Steve and Bucky were the only ones waiting in the arrivals area. It was warm out -- certainly not as warm as it had been on the island, but it was a nice summer night nonetheless. "You want to go outside?" Bucky asked Steve, and Steve nodded, so Bucky picked up his bag and Steve's and let Steve lean on him a little as they walked out.

They sat down on one of the benches at the curbside and Bucky leaned back, feeling a sort of contradictory feeling of being both energized by the vacation and also incredibly ready to go back to sleep in his own bed again. Next to him, Steve cleared his throat, and Bucky looked over at him questioningly, raising an eyebrow.

Steve was trying to look serious and doing a really bad job of it. "So," he said. "When are we filling Natasha's apartment with packing peanuts and shaving cream?"

Bucky stared at him for half a second and then tipped his head back and laughed so loudly it made the concierge inside the airport glance out at them in surprised consternation. "I don't know, buddy," Bucky said. "You're the Star Spangled Man with a Plan. You tell me."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you guys for sticking with me. :) Come say hi on [tumblr](http://dorkbait.tumblr.com) if it strikes your fancy.


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